8:55:12 a.m.
I could feel the blood tickling its way down my leg into my shoe.
“Where have you been?” Jenny demanded the second she opened the front door. “You were running.”
She sounded like a high court judge. I pushed past her and limped toward the kitchen. Squish, squish.
“Is that blood?” The icy, early morning wind snapped her nightgown around her legs. Jenny didn’t budge. She stood there in bare feet, scowling at me. Kids have no sense of self-preservation.
“Close the door, you’ll freeze to death,” I said.
Cold water from the kitchen faucet dulled the throb in my palms and cleared the dust off my face.
She followed me as far as the kitchen door. “What happened?”
“I fell.” My eyes wouldn’t stop watering. Because of the dust. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. “Go get dressed.”
Jenny took a giant step away from me, eyes wide.
“Wait, Jen-find me the phone, would you?”
She nodded, then vanished.
I don’t run every morning. For one thing, running’s boring. For another, Jenny’s not too fond of the idea. But sometimes, when my brain is too thick, the only thing that clears my head is running. Pounding it out through my feet-down and out, step, breath, step, breath-somewhere along the way, the picture in my head focuses and I can see again.
I’d spent half the night on the computer researching everything I could find about the Amish and my new hometown. I’d filtered out a list of local experts I could interview about the Amish culture, relevant local history and once again re-read the stuff Melton gave us on Jost’s time in foster care. I was missing something.
Around eight minutes past six, I threw on a sweat suit and slipped out into the pre-dawn dark to run the story loose.
So far, I had a suicide that could have been an accident, a firefighter who would have been an Amish guy, and a girl who should have been a bride. Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda. I’m on to something all right. It’s the road to hell.
Right on schedule, some underworld hound comes roaring up on my heels, driving a silver SUV.
“Son of a bitch!”
The car roared up alongside me, riding the shoulder and spitting gravel. I jerked right and misjudged the slope into the drainage ditch. My ankle buckled. My knee popped. My ass went down.
The guy slammed on his brakes, skidding to a stop twenty feet ahead of me. I scrambled upright, favoring the knee and flipping him the bird with every finger I’ve got available-not to mention providing plenty of audio-when the jerk-off guns it, fishtails gravel all over me and takes off. I got the first letter of the license before the dust hit my eyes.
Six months ago I was one of the toughest videographers in the business. Now, I’m the Joe Atlas wimp getting sand kicked in my face.
What the hell has happened here?
Jenny was of the same opinion. She stood there in the kitchen doorway, fists on her bony hips.
I slid down onto the cold ceramic floor and braced my back against the sink cabinet. I could tell it was going to be a few minutes before I could even make a call; my teeth were chattering too hard to speak clearly. Typical aftereffects of adrenaline: chills, shivering, light-headedness. All completely normal.
Eyes narrowed, Jenny peeked around the corner cabinet.
“I’m not dead, Jen. I’m just sitting on the floor.” The words set off another bout of chills.
Jenny remained skeptical. “Why?” she asked.
“Felt like it.”
With a huffy snort, she came over to sit beside me and check out my leg. I must of hit a rock when I went down. There was a gash near my knee about four inches long. I’d used my sock to slow the bleeding, but it was still seeping down my calf. I’m fine with other people’s blood; mine bothers me.
“I bet you need stitches.”
“Probably.”
“I got stitches once.”
“Yeah?”
“It hurt.”
“Your mom pinch you for those, too?”
“No. She had to hold me down.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll be right back.” Jenny patted me on the head, once, and scrambled out.
Inside, my muscles registered full of juice, ready to fly. Outside, I was crusting over with drying sweat and dust. A wobbly drip of bright red blood clung to the rivulet that streaked my calf. I flexed my toes inside my running shoe and watched the drop release-splish, splash-quickly followed by two more. The white ceramic tile made a dramatic contrast where it landed.
Everything tunneled down to breathing. Slow, in through the nose. Out through the mouth.
A few months ago my sister had a car roar up behind her. But she didn’t slide down a ravine to safety. I opened my mouth and gulped air, trying to settle my stomach.
Do not think. Do not puke.
No way could I tell Jenny a car was involved. Neither of us would survive the resulting panic loop.
Work. Work was the way out of this, away from this feeling. Work brought calm.
Calm would help Jenny.
I hit the auto-dialer. Ainsley picked it up in one ring.
“You got the morning off, College.” I’d made arrangements for Ainsley and me to go in and rough cut with the engineer. “Call Mick and ask him if he can meet us tonight for a few hours, instead of this morning.”
“Sweet. Why?”
I checked for Jenny before I answered. “Some asshole in a SUV didn’t want to share the road.”
“No way.”
“Way. I’m headed over to the emergency room.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Add insult to injury, College. Ask me another stupid question.”
“Geez, how bad? You need a hand?”
I slumped lower against the kitchen cabinet, closed my eyes and pictured my choices of worst-case scenarios: totaling the Subaru as I lost consciousness and spun out of control, versus Ainsley holding me down for stitches in the emergency room.
“No thanks. I’ve got it under control,” I told him.
“This stuff might help.” Jenny appeared carrying her mother’s Rubbermaid tub of all-purpose medical repair. My sister had been an emergency-room nurse. If anyone was prepared for trouble, it was her. “Worst case scenario, first case scenario,” I used to tease.
Too bad, I was right.
“Where’d you find that?”
“The little one stays in the linen closet. The big one was in the garage. Mom kept it in the car for emergencies.”
Hunkered down beside me, Jenny started digging through the tubs, passing right by the latex gloves, bottles of pain relief and piles of unlabeled foil-blister packets. I tried to keep my voice nonchalant as the supplies appeared: one box of princess band-aids, rubbing alcohol, three ace bandages, a stethoscope and a rubber tourniquet.
“Make sure we have an engineer tonight, College.” I spoke very deliberately into the phone. “And I’ve got a new list of pick-ups we should go after. I want to go back to Jost’s apartment and try his partner Pat again. See if we can catch him off-duty.”
“You got it, boss.” I could hear him fluffing his pillow in preparation for another few hours of sleep. “I’m yours to command.”
Jenny took a rubber strap between both hands.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“This will stop the bleeding by cutting off your circulation.”
“Anything else?” Ainsley asked.
“These are for pain.” Jenny held out the giant bottle of acetaminophen and a foil-blister pack. “Or maybe it’s these?”
The only words stamped on the back read: SAMPLE NOT FOR RESALE.
“I’ll stick with the usual.” I tossed the packet back into the bucket. Jenny shook out two tablets. “Get me some water would you, kiddo?”
“I’ll meet you at the station tonight,” Ainsley said. “What time?”
“I need you earlier, but don’t panic. It involves food. How’d you like to go picnic with the sheriff today?”
“Uh…”
“Great. Pick us up at noon.”
1:02:59 p.m.
Socializing at a garden party after stitches in the emergency room is like eating brussels sprouts after army-issue MRE’s. Some improvements aren’t worth the wait. Unfortunately, the Curzon family picnic wasn’t a meal I could skip.
It took forever to haul ourselves less than ten miles through small-town traffic to the old neighborhood where the Curzon family manse was located. We got caught behind two freight trains going opposite directions. The old Subaru wagon I’d inherited had a cassette prey-er, no tape ever ejected with its guts still intact, so Ainsley and Jenny sang to the radio Top 40 countdown. I was safely insulated by the meds they’d given me for the stitches.
According to Ainsley, the houses in Curzon’s neighborhood were built back in the days when middle-class families hired architects who would build-to-suit. We passed cottages and castles, Tudor beside Victorian, and the occasional practical brick bungalow, all on lots big enough to require gardeners. From what I’d heard, the area was mostly interchangeable old-money Protestants and new-money Republicans. Broad lawns and narrow minds, as the saying goes.
Ainsley parked the wagon at the back of a line of cars half a block away. The house was a big faux-French cottage built of yellow midwest limestone. Tall windows. Iron fence. A string of Curzon for Sheriff signs across the yard. And a cement duck dressed in a pumpkin costume.
Jenny took my hand as we wandered toward the front door. As we came around the cubist shrubbery, I could see the garage door and hear the sounds of battle. The Curzon men were engaged in our local blood-sport: man-on-man driveway hoop.
Worth watching.
The sheriff’s face was dripping sweat. The younger guy-I knew he must be related, same coloring-wasn’t as sweaty but blood marked his face, from nose to cheek. In Chicago Land, backyard basketball is nothing like the long-court ballet of the NBA. Whether it’s cement playgrounds with chain nets or blacktop driveways with acrylic backboards, the game is played rough and up under the net-hustle, push, hip-check. Make that elbow connect! Whip the ball around your opponent, bounce once, shoot, grab, twist-do it again. No blood, no foul.
Jenny, Ainsley and I stood there admiring the action for a while.
An older guy with a face that made you think basset hound was watching from the raised bluestone patio that surrounded the house. Waving a crystal highball glass in one hand, he leaned out over the wall to shout at the players, “Come on, you old fart. Can’t you do better than that? That’s it! Ooh, Nicky, you gonna take that?”
The sideline razz didn’t seem to bother the guys too much. Nicky might have youthful speed working for him, but Curzon had experience and attitude. He played like a son of a bitch.
The last shot went into the air and Nicky jumped to block half a second too late. The ball tipped the rim and dunked. Nicky cursed.
“Hey-watch your mouth, you. There’re ladies around,” the old guy snapped.
“Sorry,” Nicky replied automatically. He dropped his hands to his knees, bent over to suck in air.
Curzon looked around, saw Jenny and me, gave Nicky a friendly smack upside the head, and hustled over.
“You’re here,” he said, a little surprised. “You met my father?”
“No. Not yet.”
The old guy stood up and leaned over the wall to shake hands. He had gold wire-rim glasses so thick they magnified those tabby-cat Curzon eyes to new dimensions. His scalp was as ruddy as his droopy face and he wore a short sleeve button-down and ironed shorts. We got through introductions and Nicky went off to clean his bloody nose. Curzon Senior called one of the younger females, just old enough to be equally dazzling to Jenny and Ainsley.
“Tria, sweetheart, show these two where they can get a Coke and a hamburger, eh?”
“Sure, Grandpa.” The girl wore a Notre Dame sweater and a neat French braid. She held out her hand and smiled at Jenny, and it shocked me how easily the kid went for it. “We’re all gonna play touch football as soon as my brother’s done with his food. You want to play?”
“Sure.” Jenny tried hard to sound casual.
Ainsley gave a modest shrug of agreement, and as soon as Tria looked away he shot me a fox-in-the-henhouse eyebrow.
Just like that, I was deserted.
“So, now, tell me about yourself,” Senior said, as he waved a cheerful goodbye to my chaperones. “Jack tells me you make television shows.” It didn’t take me long to realize he thought I was there for non-professional reasons. If I’d have been a guy, he’d have asked what my intentions were regarding the sheriff.
A little crowd congregated around us. Most everyone else at the party was family. Sisters, uncles, cousins, even the grandma was there. Donna, Curzon’s mother, introduced herself. Grandma didn’t bother.
“This the girl you invited, Jack?” White-haired, hawk-nosed and wearing a velour pantsuit, Curzon’s grandma was sharp-of dress, of mind and of tongue. I liked her.
“This is the one, Nana.”
“She’s not as skinny as the other one.” Sounded like that was the nicest thing she could think to say. “Get me an ashtray, would you, Jack? Your father thinks I’m gonna flick my ashes on the patio like a tramp.”
Curzon went inside to find Nana an ashtray.
“You like my Jack?” she asked.
“Seems like a good guy.”
“You two work together?”
“Not exactly.”
She puffed a cloud of smoke off to one side. “What’s that mean?”
“I’m a reporter. We kind of,” I tried to finesse it with my hands, “work against each other.”
That got a laugh. “Good. That’s what he needs. Girl who’ll come straight at him, not stab him in the back like a damned sneaky-”
“Damned sneaky what, Nana?” Curzon crossed the patio in three long strides. He wasn’t hurrying but he plopped the glass ashtray into her hand with obvious irritation. Curzon Senior laughed.
“Damned sneaky yourself, Jack-over. Give me that ashtray. And I don’t want to hear any of that ‘you shouldn’t be smoking at your age’ crap. Damned few enough pleasures left at my age, I oughta know.” There was a patter to it, like a comedian’s routine. Everybody seemed to have heard it before.
“Nana,” Curzon’s mother chided. Donna Curzon struck me as one of those round, settled women who read sad novels in their spare time and always wore the wrong color lipstick.
“Keep it up, Ma. Jack’s gonna buy you a case of cigarettes for your birthday.” The old guy laughed at his own joke. I saw one hand reach for his wife’s ass, give her a squeeze.
Donna didn’t seem to mind. She shifted her weight toward him, leaning until her shoulder touched the whole length of his body. His hand popped into view at the small of her waist, holding her close.
That seemed to be the cue for Donna to take charge of the conversation. Had I ever met Barbara Walters? Was Peter Jennings handsome in person? In between the small talk, I nudged the sheriff twice about talking to his cousin. He continued giving me the brush-off. To make matters worse, I could see Jenny across the way, smiling and talking with some of the older kids. Even though I was itching to get the interview and get out, I wasn’t looking forward to dragging her away, now that she seemed to be having fun. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her have fun.
The whole scene felt odd as hell. I am not familiar with adjusting my schedule to someone else’s good time. I needed how-to training in standing around watching. Not to mention, the feeling that Curzon was being more than merely helpful by inviting me here. Richard Gatt had it right when he said small-town business wasn’t that different from the Chicago neighborhood politics I remembered. My clan instincts were all a-tingle.
Across the lawn, a pair of Curzon women were chatting up a pair of guests who stuck out as non-family. The older man was early forties, tall, with a jawline as chiseled as a comic book hero’s. His lanky body contrasted with a head of thick silver hair for that youthful-but-mature look. The other man I knew. Mr. Vegas himself. Pat. Tom Jost’s ambulance partner.
Interesting. I entertained the fantasy of grabbing a quick interview and crossing him off my pick-up list.
“Who’s Dick Tracy over there?” I asked Curzon. “The guy with the chin.”
“That’s Marcus Wilt. We went to law school together. He and my sister are-”
“Don’t remind me,” Nana interrupted.
“Law school?” I prodded.
Curzon shrugged. “Didn’t stick for either of us. Marcus ended up going to work for his father’s construction company.”
“You guys are friends?” I asked.
“Not close.”
Senior hacked out one of those old-man gargle sounds. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“Dad.” It was a warning.
Too late.
“So you guys are enemies?” I repeated with the same cheerfulness.
“Marcus is running for sheriff,” Curzon answered in a bland voice.
“Why shouldn’t he? You aren’t putting up a fight,” his father accused. “Shit or get off the pot, son. If you don’t, the dogs’ll get you with your pants around your ankles.”
“You want another drink?” Curzon asked me politely. “I’m going to the bar, Dad. You want something?”
“No.” Senior flapped a hand in dismissal. “Fine. Go on then.”
“Phaw. You tell me ‘keep it up.’” Nana jut her jaw forward and blew a stream of smoke straight up.
“Give it a rest, Ma.”
Curzon took hold of my elbow and walked us toward the patio serving area. Clearly, they didn’t need an audience to enjoy themselves.
“So what’s Pat doing here?”
“Pat who?”
“Pat, Tom Jost’s buddy, who is right now, sidled up to your frenemy Marcus. That’s who.”
“Marc’s got a contract with the hospital. Those two know each other.”
I looked back at Marcus Wilt. He was dapper enough to be entertaining a gentleman caller. “Are they like, together?”
“Christ. I’ll give you twenty bucks to ask Marc that question.” Curson laughed. “No. It was my mother’s idea. She asked Marc to invite the guy. And here’s Nicky. Perfect timing,” Curzon grumbled. “Now you can ferret out the rest of the family secrets. I’ll leave you to him.” Another brief introduction and Curzon marched off in the direction of the bar.
I tried to think of Nicky Curzon as the bad-cop type, but it just wouldn’t stick. A couple inches shorter and a couple years younger than the sheriff, he had the same width in the chest and shoulder. Cop-sized. He’d changed into a red-on-black Be Like Mike T-shirt which, given his earlier net loss, seemed kind of cute.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” He shook my hand-not squishy, not stiff.
I didn’t want to launch straight into the Jost thing. Rarely does the best stuff flow at the start of an interview. I glanced across the patio at Senior. “Seems like your uncle’s pretty annoyed with the sheriff.”
Nicky shrugged. “It happens.”
Occupational hazard of mine-with only a taste of information, I felt compelled to feed him another opening. Something vague and open-ended like, “He doesn’t think Jack’s fighting for it?”
Nicky shot me a skeptical look. “Jack talked to you about the election?”
“More or less.” Curzon would gut me with a spoon if he caught me wheedling personal secrets out of his cousin. I smiled, casually.
“Jack told me to watch myself around you.” Nicky gave me a smug once-over. “Guess that’s because you got to him first, huh?”
I feigned a little maidenly modesty.
Nicky plopped down on the bench beside me and stretched his legs out in front of him, making himself comfortable. He had the blunt body of so many cops. Not clumsy, but stiff. Made to be in motion, they never seemed quite happy at rest.
“I have to agree with Uncle Mike. Jack’s not trying very hard. I think he wants to lose.”
“Really? Why?”
“Don’t know. I do know the work’s a part of him. Being sheriff, law enforcement, all of it. Part of his heritage. You can’t just walk away from that.”
“Not easily.” I took a stab. “Do you think the divorce had something to do with it? It’s not uncommon. Guy splits with his wife, wants to make some changes across the board.”
Nicky stared hard at me. “Jack talked to you about that, too?” He exhaled as if he were blowing off steam. “It’s been two years since the She-bitch left. Guess it depends on whether the change improves things or makes it worse. He’s a good sheriff. He knows the job. Marcus-” The look I saw was long-suffering and skeptical. “I don’t want Jack to lose. None of us do. Some good press would help.”
Ah ha. My invitation to the party suddenly made sense.
“Good press can be hard to come by. Tell me about your letter to Jost’s commander at the fire station.”
Nicky was ready for my question. “Maybe I was trying to keep things from getting worse.”
“Tell me.”
There was no camera running. There was no one to hear but the two of us. Sometimes, guy has a problem, all it takes is someone asking nicely.
“What did the girl say to you?” he asked.
“Rachel Jost said you interrupted a clinch. She sounded ashamed and worried for Tom.”
“For him? Jesus. Why?” He shifted around, aggravation coming through in his body language. “She didn’t have a thing to be ashamed about. He was the one acting like a dick.”
“How so?”
“They’d already steamed up the windows when I rolled up on them but Jost must of opened something to keep the air circulating, because I heard her ‘No,’ clear as you and me talking right here. More than once she said it. ‘No, please no.’” He said it quick and rough and absolutely flat, in a rumbly baritone. On his face, it was clear that wasn’t how he’d heard it.
I pulled in a deep breath and let it out slow.
“And I heard his answer, too.” Nicky upended his beer bottle and chugged like he was washing out his mouth. “‘Stay,’ he told her. ‘Stay!’ Like he was talking to a dog.”
He was lost. He asked me to stay, I turned him away.
“And then he says, ‘If we do it, you’ll stay with me. I know you will.’ Word for word, my hand to God, that’s what Jost said-right before I dropped on his ass,” Nicky added, grim and satisfied.
“You think he was about to rape her?”
“Girl said no.”
“Fuck,” I said softly.
“Exactly.”
“More ‘paraphilia of a sacrificial type.’” I sighed. Tom Jost was desperate enough to pressure Rachel physically in order to coerce her into marriage. He knew Rachel was conflicted enough about her feelings and conservative enough about sex that losing her virginity to him would seal the deal. She’d marry him.
“What?”
“Rachel was Tom’s sexual sacrifice. Tell me about the memo.”
“They were gonna let him walk. No record. No report,” Nicky confessed. “Firefighter. One of the brotherhood. Nobody got hurt; no real crime. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Sure.”
“I seen guys like that before. Goes right back to his life. Eventually, it’s gonna happen again. You know it. I know it. He’s gonna hurt somebody. Some woman probably.”
He was playing for my sympathy and I was having a hard time resisting.
“Maybe.”
“I kept thinking about her and what Jost had said in the car. I made a couple calls. The guy was no angel. I decided somebody ought to know.” He sucked back another quick swallow of beer. “I wrote his chief and put it on the record. I knew there was a chance I’d take shit for it.” He looked me in the eye and shrugged. Nice eyes. Curzon eyes.
“They reprimanded you for sending the letter?”
“Yeah.”
“What about the guys at the firehouse? Did they give you a hard time?”
“Let’s just say, I better hope nothing near me catches fire anytime soon.” Nicky smiled that feral, humorless grin that stands for bring it on.
Police and fire service are boy gangs-for-good. They may fight the bad guys, but they live the same code. Fuck with a brother, get fucked back. No firefighter ever had to fear a speeding ticket in his hometown. No cop had to carry out a dead body, even if he made it dead. Especially if he made it dead.
Pat the fireman was twitching his way toward the exit, saying his good-byes. He was full of nervous tension, glancing around, checking his watch. Donna Curzon tried to slow him down, gesturing toward Nicky and I. Pat shook his head and took a backward step.
“I heard Jost was getting a lot of grief back at the firehouse.”
“Guess we both got our share.”
“Anyone in particular?”
Donna crossed her arms and watched Pat head down the driveway. Her husband slipped up behind her. His face said, let him go.
Obviously, Curzon’s mother was a politician as well. If Nicky was getting shit from the men at the firehouse, who better to make peace than Tom’s pal?
Nicky laughed. “Why? You gonna go beat him up for me?”
“You don’t think I can?” We were easing out of it now, using the jokes to back away from something that was still pretty raw. “I’d like to see you try,” Nicky said. “Especially in those shoes.”
We both took a moment to admire my sandals. Not the kind of footwear that inspires fear in your enemy. Or maybe it was the pedicure. Jenny had insisted on helping me feel better by polishing my toes with bubble-gum-pink-and-extra-glitter after the emergency-room staff held me down for the stitches. I had some fine painkillers on board by then.
Nicky ceased with the admiration when we noticed cousin Jack headed our way. “You must be tougher than you look, if Jack’s interested.”
“He’s not interested in me. I’m a useful irritant.”
“Don’t tell Nana. This is the first peace he’s had from the nagging since Sharon left.”
“Sharon? The ‘She-bitch’?”
“Shh,” he whispered. “Family pet-name Jack never appreciated.”
Right about then, the sheriff himself came striding into the conversation with all the tact of a cop breaking up a house party. “You’re done. Dad wants you inside.”
“Guess I’m done.” Nicky flashed me a grin but asked his cousin seriously, “Trouble?”
Curzon shrugged, noncommittal.
Nicky crossed the patio in a hurry, his voice drifting as he closed the french door behind him, “Whaa-at?”
I shot Curzon a look and he was smiling, too.
“Family.”
He nodded. “The food’s ready. Brats are done.” He pronounced it like a good midwesterner. Brahtzs. Sausages. “Dad promised him first pick since he lost the ball game.”
“Doesn’t the winner get first pick?”
“Of dessert.”
I laughed. What was it about being gathered in a family unit that made people revert to their prehistoric patterns? Big man. Little man. Boss lady. She-bitch. I looked over at Jenny and my momentary bubble of equilibrium popped. Who was I to her?
Somehow, Curzon managed to slip a question into that breach. Then another, and another. Questions about how long the drive had taken us, and how long I’d been working out, and how long I’d been away from Chicago Land. I knew he was pumping me. At first, I answered with the thought, give a little, get a little. Maybe I’d get a little something about Tom Jost out of him. Much later along the way, I realized I was giving more than I could reasonably expect to get, but the conversation continued. I told him things about work, about me, that I hadn’t told anyone.
“Holy shit,” Curzon marveled. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“That was about the worst.”
Some of the things I’d turned into pictures haunted me. Most of them weren’t frightening exactly. The danger had passed.
They were only bones. Bones can’t hurt you. Even rows and rows of bones. Human skeletons. And me, picking my way across the ground, stepping oh, so carefully. In dreams, it always ended the same. I choose a skull and turn it in my hand, considering the best angle for my camera’s eye. I am trying to find a way to get the light to shine inside behind the empty sockets. No matter how I twist it, nothing ever works. The skull stares back at me, eyes so black they give me vertigo.
That’s the dream that wakes me in a sweat. Curzon took a long drag on his Anchor Steam beer. “The shit people do to one another,” he said philosophically.
“And to themselves,” I added, thinking of Tom Jost.
The kids were organizing a game on the lawn. Ainsley put up a token resistance to being dragged in to play, pulling Jenny along with him. Their voices crossed the space in little sound bites of high-note happiness.
We watched them play as Curzon talked about the things a cop sees.
Work stories. War stories. Everybody has them. I’ve probably got it easier than the sheriff in one respect. My stories might be on a bigger scale but they originated far, far away; his hit closer to home. Maybe it was calculated to charm me. Maybe.
If so, it was working.
“Right. That’s enough, you two clams. Come join the party.” Donna Curzon came with a tray full of glasses, filled with an iced yellow liquid topped by two inches of white froth. “Maddy, you have to try this. It’s lemonade beer. Really nummy.”
“What the hell have you done to that perfectly good beer, Mom?” Curzon said. “Ice and lemonade? I’m going to have to issue you a warning for indecent mixing.”
She gave me the long-suffering look but otherwise ignored her son. “Go ahead, Maddy. Have a taste.”
“I’m not much of a drinker.”
“That’s not much of a drink,” Curzon said.
“Your father likes it.”
I accepted a glass to keep peace with the hostess. She smiled at me and wandered off to sell the rest to other guests. I took a sip. “Your dad must be a politician, too.”
“Only when it comes to my mother,” Curzon answered. “My job would drive him crazy. He’s all cop. Married to the same woman, living in the same place, going to the same barbershop over thirty years. Drives a Crown Vic. Always has a hundred dollar bill in his wallet for emergencies. Upright guy.”
Nicky came out of the house carrying a plate piled with enough food to feed Jenny and me for a week. Curzon noticed he was headed our way and pointed out across the lawn. “You want to walk?”
“Sure.”
He stopped in a quiet spot beside the half-wall that banked steps leading down to the cellar. We could still see the touch football game, but the rest of the gang was out of our line of sight-or we were out of their’s. “Except for politics, you and your dad sound like two of a kind to me.”
“No way.” He sucked back a swallow of beer. “My wife left before we’d marked a nickel. My car’s foreign and I got nothing in my wallet but plastic.”
That’s the problem with sharing war stories. It brings you down. If there’s one thing I dread, it’s decent guys flaying themselves for an audience. Time to change the subject.
“Any word on that police report you promised me?”
He looked the other way, irritated with himself. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
He made an effort to laugh. “Cause of death, gross displacement of spinal cord and cervical vertebra-”
“Translate.”
“Broken neck. Time of death was approximately nine o’clock-”
“No shit, nine a.m.?”
“Guy died about a half hour before we got there.” He sounded matter of fact, but I could see him questioning my reaction. I waved it off.
“How’d you hear about it?” I asked.
“Phone tip. Somebody saw him setting up, I guess. We ran the plate and knew it was Jost by the time we sent guys to the scene.”
“Phone tip called in the license plate?”
“Yeah.”
That seemed weird to me, given the off-road nature of Jost’s parking job. His little car had been parked parallel to the road in the ditch. The person who called it in would have to have driven right by the car.
“Coroner thinks Jost must have been out there a while, setting himself up. There was a lot of foot traffic between his car and the site.” Curzon shifted back to a recline, against the patio wall. Sipped his beer. Nothing like a little shop-talk to make you forget your troubles. “He used rope from the ambulance rig. Stacked the boxes he had in his trunk to get the lift he needed, kicked the top box out from under him…or it slipped.”
“Does the coroner have an opinion?”
Curzon hesitated. “Off the record?”
“Why not? Everyone else is.” I took a sip of lemonade beer to wash the bitter out of my voice. On the fourth sip, I decided Mrs. Curzon was right. It was nummy.
“Evidence is contradictory. I assume you saw what was inside those boxes?” he asked.
“Porno magazines.”
“Yeah. Same ones found in the trunk of his car the night he was brought in.” He said it as if it might not mean a thing, but the silence that followed said otherwise.
Figuring people was a skill that improved with experience. Tracking people, tracking behavior, the more you knew of the possibilities the more likely you could imagine a solution to a scenario. Things fit or they didn’t. I figured Curzon was one of the lucky few who could keep up with me when it came to tracking someone into the dark of uncharted, unhappy possibilities.
I threw out a suggestion. “Everybody already knew about the mags, so why bother to take them out of the car?”
Curzon crooked one of those black eyebrows in disbelief. Didn’t sound right to me either. A guy like Jost wouldn’t leave them in his car once they’d been discovered. He’d have the guys at work asking to see what he had in his trunk every damn day.
“He used the same magazines that got him busted to hang himself. Could be remorse. Self-punishment.” I sipped my lemonade. “What’s ‘contradictory’ about the evidence?”
“The magazines suggest a sexual-” Curzon finally settled on, “-intent. But there’s no other evidence to support that assumption. No pertinent body fluids. Guy had his clothes on. In fact, those clothes he was wearing? The pants don’t even have a fly.”
“How…awkward for him.”
Curzon acknowledged this with a tip of his beer. “Exactly. On the other hand, judging by the time of death, and the mud on the sides of the box, he had to have been standing out there a while. Probably standing up on the boxes for a while. Looking at pictures, maybe? We don’t know.” He shook his head.
Weirdness.
“Trying to get up his courage?” Was courage what it took to face that moment?
“Possibly,” Curzon answered vaguely. “Guy was no Boy Scout. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to tie the knot.” That thought generated a frown and shrug. “On the other hand-how many hands is that now?-there was no note.”
Another indication of autoerotic asphyxiation, according to Dr. Graham.
I shook my head. “Contradictory evidence.”
“You got it.” Curzon sounded stoical, in a pissed-off sort of way.
“Any other witnesses,” I asked as casually as I could manage, “besides the phone tip?”
“No.” He turned to face me and consider the possibilities my question suggested. “None.”
I nodded, ah.
“You’d report any pertinent information to the proper authorities, wouldn’t you, Maddy O’Hara?”
The use of my whole name-a sure sign of trouble.
“Of course I would, Sheriff Curzon.”
He smiled and the glow in those eyes understood exactly how little we really knew of each other. “I see you brought your boy along today.” He wasn’t looking at Ainsley; he was looking at me.
Ainsley was thick into the game of touch football with the underage Curzons. The females seemed to be tackling him whether he had the ball or not.
“I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Not at all,” he assured me. Eyes still trained on the game, he added, “I’m glad.”
“Gives the kids someone to play with?”
Curzon smiled as a gang of mostly girls brought Ainsley down again. The boy stood up and shook himself off when Marcus Wilt called out a hello. Ainsley ran a couple of loping steps that direction and shook hello, all charm. PK-politician’s kid-probably knew three quarters of the people in town. Beside me, Curzon tensed.
The kids called Ainsley back to the game.
“I’d say the fact you brought your escort looks good for me.”
“Don’t hold your breath, Sheriff.”
“Jack,” he said.
“What?”
“Jack Curzon. It’s my name. You’re a guest in my father’s house, eating my mother’s food. Drinking her-” he curled his lip and pointed at my glass, “-drink. You ought to be calling me Jack…”
“How about I call you jack-”
“…not to mention the fact, I’m about to get familiar with you.”
Without so much as a glance in my direction, I felt his hand shift from my elbow, to my waist, to the small of my back. The cold of the wall behind me was suddenly replaced with the heat of his palm.
Jenny squealed with laughter as she went down under a pig-pile of ballplayers.
All those painkillers on board, I should have had no trouble staying cool. Numb, even. “Uh,” was the best I could do.
Lame. Maybe lemonade beer was stronger than I thought.
That spot of warmth quickly slipped lower, tucking under the hem of my blouse. Skin to skin at the small of my back, warm became hot. All the blood left my head.
I hissed, side-stepped away from him with my bad leg, and sang a stinging little song of the profane.
Curzon grabbed my arm when I bobbled. “Whoa. What’s the problem?”
“Your town’s full of crazy-fucking drivers is what.” I backed out of his grip and boosted my butt up onto the concrete wall. Gingerly, I swung my leg up in front of me and hiked up the split cuff of my capris. The white patch of bandage sported a brown stain that I hoped was peroxide. I decided not to peel it back and check.
“How’d that happen?”
I grumbled out the short version of my brush with the SUV.
“You report it?” he asked in the work voice.
“No. Are you kidding? Not that big a deal. Besides, the emergency room ate up my free time. I had to get to this swell party.”
“Come in tomorrow and fill out a complaint.” It wasn’t an order; orders presuppose a future compliant will. This was more like old news. A done deal.
“Why bother?” I snapped. “You people couldn’t catch the guy when the victim was all the way dead.”
Oops. Where did that come from?
“And how is that conflict of interest going?” he replied smoothly.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “That came out rougher than I meant. Blame the Vicodin.”
Both his eyebrows lifted. He was working to manage no smile. God help me, if he laughed.
“Legal, totally legal,” I said. “Twelve stitches under there.”
Curzon had that cop way with his hands, momentum held in check that could suddenly turn physical. He took hold of my calf, and before I could think to stop him, he’d carefully extended the knee for closer inspection. “Hmm. Looks like what you need is somebody to kiss it better.”
His hands were a good five degrees warmer than my leg. When he leaned forward, the air around us moved and I caught a clear whiff of him, all boy and healthy sweat.
Perched on top of the wall where I was, it was obvious the rest of the Curzon clan had a good view of this exchange.
I know everybody has more than one reason for doing anything. But sometimes the best way to get along is to concentrate on one motive at a time. Maybe this little show was nothing personal. Maybe Jack Curzon was laying down a cover of suitable female interest. He might not wiggle all the way off the hook, but his nana would quit harassing him about his post-divorce solitude as long as he was busy elsewhere.
On those grounds, I could play along.
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed. “In fact, why don’t you start by sucking that foot clean? I had a little trouble reaching down so far in the shower this morning.”
It was my favorite type of man-eater reply, perfectly suited to discouraging barely legal soldier boys who hadn’t even learned to appreciate the taste of vegetables.
Curzon’s leer made it obvious real quick; I’d miscalculated. He skewered me with a look that offered a peek in his bedroom window. Toe sucking was only one of the activities on his menu.
It had been a long time since I’d had to deal with a guy like this. Out of practice and out of ammo, I faked a cough to cover the blood rushing to my face.
“Another time maybe,” he replied after due consideration. One hand slid up and down the underside of my calf. “Come to the station tomorrow. File a complaint.”
“Mmm.”
He let go. I sat up, jerked my pant leg back in place and picked up my near-empty glass of lemonade beer. He took a sip of his drink. I took a sip of mine. Just a couple of calm, collected characters having a polite discussion of probabilities.
“I hope I’m not interrupting?” Marcus Wilt smiled at me. No teeth, plenty of eyebrow.
“Marc. Have you met Maddy O’Hara?”
“I haven’t. Yet.”
Wilt’s hand came out and I shook it, even though it was awkward the way I was perched on the wall. He was the kind of good-looking man who puts a lot of effort into the first two and a half seconds he meets a woman: yes or no?
He read my no, loud and clear, and shifted his attention immediately to Curzon. “Heard you had to reprimand Nicky.”
There was a long silence.
Wilt leaned against the wall beside me, hands in his pockets. He wore beautifully tailored linen slacks, a dusty-blue silk shirt and Italian woven loafers without socks. Probably had the lifetime subscription to Esquire magazine. If Curzon was the basketball gladiator, Wilt was doing his best to rank as garden-party senator.
“Too bad about the suicide,” he said seriously. “Re-opens that whole can of worms, doesn’t it?”
Generations of controversy had time to be considered before Curzon finally answered, “No.”
Wilt nodded as if he’d heard paragraphs of rationale. “Hope you’re right,” he replied sincerely. Donna Curzon was waving frantically from across the patio. Wilt pushed off from the wall. “I’m being summoned. Nice meeting you, Ms. O’Hara.”
We watched him walk away and I asked, “Why’s he busting your ass?”
Curzon cracked a smile, then shook his finger at me. “No family business on the first date. It’s a rule.”
“This isn’t a date. This is work.”
He countered with a frown but his good humor didn’t fade. “In that case, I believe Marc is indicating that should Jost’s suicide become publicized, Nicky’s reprimand will be fair game in the race for sheriff.”
“All that from three sentences?”
“We’ve known each other a while.”
“And what do you want me to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why am I here?”
Green-eyed death glare. Before he could fire off another one of those scintillating one-word answers, Jenny obliged him by crashing into the conversation, red-faced and breathless. I’d never seen her so charged up.
“Hey kid, nice timing.”
“Why don’t you come see me at the station around lunchtime tomorrow?” Curzon threw out suddenly. “Leave your boy. Come hungry.”
“Did you see me?” Jenny asked. “Wasn’t that great? Come hungry where? What are you talking about?”
“You can’t be hungry, kid.” I slipped off the wall, careful of how my weight landed. “I saw that hamburger you ate.”
“Remind your aunt tomorrow morning, she’s having lunch with me, so she can tell me all about her incident,” Curzon said to Jenny, with a head nod toward my bad leg.
Jenny’s face squinched suspiciously. “What does he mean ‘incident’?”
He answered before I thought to stop him. “With the car, when she hurt her leg.”
“What car?” Jenny rounded on me with all the drama of a soap diva. “You said you fell.”
“I did fall.” I glared at Curzon, even though-technically-this wasn’t his fault. “A car made me fall.”
All the fun visible on Jenny’s face vanished.
Hit-and-run. It happens just that fast.
4:34:25 p.m.
“We need to make a stop, College.” I looked over my shoulder into the back seat. “That fine with you, Jen?”
She managed the effort of a single shoulder shrug while staring grimly out the window.
I really needed to work. We needed more material if we were going to squeeze out six decent minutes. The desire to be in the studio-in the dark and absorbed by my process-bubbled in my blood like a junkie’s addiction.
My hands even shook a little at the thought of going straight home, straight back to my sister’s empty house with Jenny. She had not said one word to me since Curzon dropped the bomb. Mistake after mistake, I was piling them on as fast as Tom Jost did in his last weeks.
For some reason my brain kept replaying Curzon’s comment that Jost must have stood on those boxes a while before he died.
What had he been doing? The Amish clothes and his choice of location suggested he was spitting in his father’s eye. But the fact that he wanted to marry Rachel in the Amish church also suggested the costume was for her benefit.
Is it date rape if the guy is trying to compel you to marry him?
Or is it kidnapping?
Ainsley glanced in his rearview mirror, monitoring Jenny’s mood. “Where’re we stopping?”
“Let’s try Tom Jost’s apartment building again. It’s Sunday afternoon. The neighbors should be home. Maybe we can talk to the super or something.”
“Tom’s apartment.” Ainsley hooked the turn that would put us closer to Jost’s apartment on the fringe of town. “I’m on it.”
Jenny said nothing. Every so often, I’d catch a snap of anger in her eyes right before everything stiffened into the child zombie routine.
“What’s the problem, Jenny? You’ve been sulking since we left the party.”
“No problem,” she mumbled.
“You can see I’m fine. I didn’t say anything about the stupid car because I thought it would bother you, okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
Ainsley raised both eyebrows.
This time the drive seemed to take forever, even without the whole Top 40 sing-along. It was close to sunset when we finally pulled into Jost’s parking lot. There were windows open in several apartments and more cars in the lot than the last time we visited. I could smell a charcoal grill. Good signs. The “All Stressed Out and No One To Choke” bumper sticker showed a certain amount of ambient hostility but who am I to criticize?
“You want to come in with us?” I asked Jenny over my shoulder, “or wait here in the car?”
“Car.”
“Fine.”
“Okay,” Ainsley added.
I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t making fun of us. I slammed my car door before opening the back hatch.
We’d packed cameras, of course. Ainsley had loaded the car without a repeat of the we-sleep-with-equipment speech. At least the boy retained new information.
“Let’s carry cameras to the door this time.” I pulled my press card out of my messenger bag and clipped it to my shirt.
We aren’t supposed to be class snobs in the good ol’ U.S. of A. but there’s a certain segment of the population that still got so tickled at the thought of seeing their faces on television, they’d say or do just about anything to get there. Perhaps even give a lady a tour of an apartment that might normally be considered off limits.
I could see Jenny was busy not watching us from the car.
It took two rings before we got an answer.
The intercom buzzed. “Whozzit?”
“Looking for the building manager?”
There was a long pause and then the electric click and hum of the lock release.
No one came out to greet us but I gravitated toward the only door in the hall that had a buzzer button. Someone had posted a line of notices down the door that included a shiny Volunteer Fire Department sticker and Solicitors Will Be Shot on Sight.
I could hear voices coming from inside the apartment, raised over the sound of the television.
“…they want?”
“…the hell should I know?”
The door popped open and a fine native specimen in a Chicago Bears T-shirt announced, “I’m the manager. What d’ya need?” He had a round face, belly and shiny spot on top where the hair was missing. He’d make a terrific contrast to our first interview, Farmer Lowe, and even better one to Old Mr. Jost, if I could ever get the Amish man on film.
“Sorry to bother you. I’m Maddy O’Hara from WWST and we’re working on a story about someone who used to live in this building. Guy named Tom Jost?”
“Television?”
“That’s right.” I smiled. Moments like these always feel a bit like I’m holding out the dog biscuit with one hand, while the net dangles behind my back in the other.
“You want to put me on television?” he said with a grin. He sucked in his gut and puffed out his chest a la Fred Flintstone. He didn’t sound surprised, more like his moment had finally arrived.
“If you aren’t too busy.” More smiling.
“Hold on a minute.” He shut the door in our faces.
Ainsley set the camera case on the ground and scratched his head. In a bad-news tone, he told me, “Uh, Maddy, I didn’t bring enough lighting to shoot an interior interview.”
“What?”
“Sorry. You said it was a picnic. Picnics are outside. I can do docudrama style.”
“‘Docudrama style’? That’s two, College.”
He rolled his eyes up to heaven hoping for a second opinion.
“Maybe we can shoot the manager on Jost’s patio.”
The sound of a ball game on television mingled with the voices inside.
“…no shit?” a woman’s voice asked.
“…clean fuckin’ shirt?” answered our Fred Flintstone with the potty mouth.
“Not as if lighting is going to make the difference for this guy,” I had to concede.
Fred re-emerged a few minutes later in a clean knit shirt, with very unfortunate horizontal stripes, and the word Manager embroidered above the pocket. He’d clipped a carabiner full of keys to his belt loop that gave him a jingle as he walked.
“Tom’s place is right down here. You want to see inside?”
“That would be great.”
“Cops were here last week but they didn’t say nothing about it being off limits. I can let you in. No problem.” He had one eye on Ainsley’s camera box. “Am I gonna be on TV?”
“I was hoping you might agree to let us interview you if you’ve got a minute? We’d like to ask a few questions about Mr. Jost.”
Ainsley unsnapped the case and had the camera on his shoulder ready to roll faster than I’ve ever seen.
“Did the police remove much from the apartment?”
“Nothing to take,” he assured me. “Guy lived like a hermit. Cops walked through. Took some pictures, a few personal papers. That was it.”
“Did you know Tom?”
“Yeah, sure. I manage this building so he had to come through me for everything. Keys, light bulbs, shower clogs, I do it all. I think he had one clog, once. Odd guy. Nice enough, sure, but something about him. Wasn’t right, you know?” He tapped his temple with his finger. “Guy was a firefighter for the city though. You knew that, right? I’m local VFD myself, so when this guy calls saying there’s a fellow fireman looking for a place, I’m gonna help him out, you know, Amish or whatever.” He unlocked the door and waved us through.
Jost’s apartment was as spare as I remembered. Ainsley set up with a flood lamp attachment, which would probably look crappy, but was the best choice given the circumstances. I walked around pointing out the pick-ups I wanted: the lonely bed, the uniform fresh from the cleaner, the photo of Tom and Rachel at the carnival.
“Tell me more about Tom.”
He crossed his arms above his gut and propped himself against the table, the picture of authority. “Well, he was real quiet. Never heard him coming in, going out. Most of the people in this building, I know when they come and go. Not Tom. Never drank beer, either, and I offered plenty of times. Never took me up on it. Then, there was the problem with the animals. Couple times, I had to give him warnings about that. No pets allowed, you know.”
“What about the dog sign out front?” Ainsley pointed out.
“That’s a guard dog.”
Ah. “What kind of pets did Jost keep?”
“They weren’t pets. They were pests. Baby birds that made a nest in the firehouse and had to be fed like every commercial break, you know? No one in the firehouse would take them so he did. Shit like that, pardon my French.” He glanced at the camera. “Sorry.”
A woman with straw-colored hair and freshly applied lipstick popped her head around the corner. “Honey? Mrs. B is on the phone.”
“I’m busy here,” Fred replied.
“She says it’s an emergency.” She whined at him, but smiled at me. “They never leave him alone. Especially on weekends.”
Fred heaved a gusty sigh. “This’ll only take a minute.”
“No problem.”
I was afraid the wife would stay to supervise but Fred pulled her into a hotly whispered argument on his way out, the gist of which seemed to be if he couldn’t stay to be on TV, neither would she.
“Leave the set up,” I told Ainsley the minute the door closed. “Let’s look around.” Ainsley made a face like he’d swallowed something nasty and shook his head no. I got busy opening kitchen cabinets, the utility closet, the fridge.
“Don’t panic. I’m not going to ask you to roll camera on his underwear drawer.”
In a worry-whisper, he asked, “What are you looking for?”
“You’ll know when you see it.”
The best thing about my college boy was he mostly did as he was told. The camera came with him. In most camera jocks, this would be because the camera is as much a part of them as some people see their shoes, their keys, their wallets. Ainsley wanted it for his cover story, in case we got busted searching the place.
Exploring Jost’s place did not take long. If there was anything interesting to find, we’d have found it. The only halfway remarkable item was the sheer mass of strawberry jam-at least two dozen jars in the cabinet.
“How much jam can a guy eat?”
“Don’t knock it. This is really good stuff.” Ainsley pulled down a jar and held it out for me. “You ever had Amish fruit spread?”
“Focus, College. Stay focused.”
I grabbed the jam jar and looked more closely at the label. The handwriting on the front was a thin, slanted script that seemed to barely touch the paper. It made me wonder if Tom’s taste for preserves had more to do with the strawberries or the girl who made them.
“Let’s try the bedroom.”
Empty, except for a full-sized box spring and mattress. I looked under the bed. “Nothing.”
“Why do you say it like that?” Ainsley asked. “Is being neat such a crime?”
“Guy had a trunk full of pornography, remember?”
“So?”
“It occurs to me, College, there are more convenient places to peruse your porno collection than the car.”
“Oh. I get you.” Ainsley ducked behind the viewfinder.
There was nowhere in the room to hide anything. The guy didn’t even have a night stand. His phone charger sat empty on the floor, plugged into the outlet closest to the bed. The closet was as sparsely arranged as the kitchen cupboards. I shuffled the few hanging items over to the far side of the closet. A tool belt hung on a hook above a set of construction boots. There was something tucked behind his boots in the back corner, an empty box for a pair of brand new, long-range binoculars.
“Check this out,” I called.
“This guy doesn’t even have a stereo,” Ainsley pointed out. “Why’s he got those?”
“Watching the neighbors?”
Ainsley peeked out around the camera. “You’ve got a bad opinion of humans for the most part.”
“You think?”
“Maybe Jost was a bird watcher,” Ainsley suggested, hopefully.
“I’m back,” Fred called.
I stood up and faced the door.
“Oh, here you are.” He gave a little self-effacing chuckle and then bluntly asked, “Look my wife’s wondering if you can put her on TV too?”
“Sure. Great idea.”
An hour’s worth of interview with Fred and his wife and I was generating spin-offs for future stories: Dangers of Rural Housing Developments.
“We are on a roll, College,” I reported as we pulled out of Jost’s parking lot. “We scored background and meat on the same day. Things are looking up.”
The sun was at the hard edge of the horizon and setting the sky on fire. The green-white light of the street lamps burned like spot-flares above Butterfield Road’s five lanes of strip mall flow. Everything looks better when the work goes well.
The empty binocular box kept running through my head. According to Manager Fred, the cops hadn’t removed anything from the place. “What’s there to take?” he’d scoffed.
The cops wouldn’t make the connection to the death scene I was making because they hadn’t seen my photos. At this point, I was the only one who knew someone had been watching Jost hang through binoculars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask the cops if they knew anything that might explain the empty box or the watcher in the barn without Curzon requesting full disclosure.
Technically, there was no crime here-a broken heart, a soiled reputation, the hell of a public shame. Nope. That’s no crime.
Could Tom Jost have arranged for someone to be looking through binoculars when he kicked that box out from under him? Or did he figure his father would want to check it out after the fact, when the commotion of police and fire trucks arrived on the scene?
Rachel told us her father wouldn’t let her watch. Was that because her father knew exactly what she’d see? Nothing quite made sense.
“Let’s make one more stop, College.”
There might have been a sigh but it was a small one. The Boy Wonder was getting used to me.
“Where?”
“That sporting goods store up ahead, where 355 meets Butterfield.”
A plan started percolating, based on my curiosity and a chink of suspected guilt. There’s more than one way to squeeze info from a situation. Sometimes it’s a question of the right tool.
Ainsley parked but left it running. Swearing I didn’t need a lot of time, I slipped into the store as the manager was locking up. Nobody remembered Jost. I found what I needed and was out in less than ten.
The sky had already faded to twilight-black. I opened my car door. Ainsley and Jenny hit the mute button. They’d been talking, I could hear the silence in Ainsley’s sudden smile.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked.
“Project for tomorrow morning.”
All the stores were closing and it took a while to maneuver through the glut of cars in the parking lot. Ainsley was watching his mirrors closely. I should have known something was up. Boys don’t check their mirrors when they drive; everything important is in front of them.
At the second stop light, he leaned toward me, speaking softly, “What sort of car was it gave you trouble?”
“This morning? Silver SUV.”
“Crap.” Ainsley jerked his chin, toward the rearview mirror. I twisted to look out the back window.
One lane over, one car back, hummed a silver SUV with tinted windows.
“How long has he been back there?”
“First noticed him when we left Jost’s place.” Ainsley was watching the guy in the side mirror. “I didn’t think anything of it, except he followed us into the parking lot. I never saw anybody get out of the car and then when we pulled out of the lot, suddenly he’s behind us again.”
The left turn arrow went green. I had half a minute, maybe.
Something happened to me a long time ago, wires got crossed that were never meant to be crossed. When most people are frightened of something, they back away. I run straight at it.
“Maddy-” Ainsley called. “Jee-zus. Wait!”
Too late. I’d flung open my door and started stalking my way through the traffic. The headlights of the cars I crossed in front of flared like spotlights. A horn blew.
“Okay! You little shithead,” I announced, loud enough the old lady in the Bonneville rolled up her window, speedy quick. “You want to conference with me? Let’s do it. Right here. Right now.”
Another horn blew, longer this time.
“Maddy, no!” Ainsley stood in the gap of the open driver’s door.
Jenny’d crawled out of her seatbelt and had her palm pressed against the glass at the back window of the station wagon as if she were trapped inside. Her small pale face had no expression in the white glare of the headlights; nothing but stillness and round eyes.
The SUV’s passenger windows were tinted and the early night shadows made it impossible to see more than the shape of a head behind the steering wheel. I pointed at him and then reached for the passenger side door handle. Suddenly, the asshole cut out of the waiting line of cars straight into the oncoming lanes, then gunned a U.
Gone.
The riot of horns and Ainsley waving come on! snapped my attention in line. I threw my hands in the air and forced a smile. Must have been a fairly scary-looking smile; the guy in the car next to me stared like I was some kind of zoo exhibit.
“What?”
He pulled in his chin and faced the traffic ahead.
I walked back to the Subaru and got in.
Ainsley and Jenny were giving me the same look.
“It’s fine,” I told them. “We’re fine, okay? Drive.”
“Where to?” Ainsley asked, the words clipped hard.
“Office. I got stuff to pick up,” I snapped back. I caught a glimpse of Jenny in the rearview mirror. She was staring out her window without blinking, tearing at her fingernails with fast, nipping motions.
My knee started throbbing like a son of a bitch. “Give me a sip of your pop,” I ordered Ainsley, using it to swallow another pain med. I shut my eyes and waited-for pain to pass and temper to cool.
I needed time. I needed more time than I had. As usual.
“Was it the same guy?” Ainsley asked, his voice low.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I just terrorized some unsuspecting SUV driver who happened to have an errand at the mall the same time we did.”
“How could anyone have followed us? We didn’t plan to go to Jost’s place.”
I looked at him. “I’d say they’d have to have followed us from the sheriff’s party.”
“You don’t think-?”
“I don’t know. Jack-Curzon-seemed awful hot for me to make a report, so I doubt he had anything to do with it, but his cousin? I don’t know. Too much I don’t know here.” I looked back into the back seat. Jenny was half-asleep, slumped against her door. Adrenaline does that sometimes.
“But why?” Ainsley sounded as mystified as I felt. “What do they want?”
“Hell if I know.”
After the office stop, Ainsley decided to talk to me again. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”
I couldn’t resist a high drama sound. “What kind of bullshit question is that?”
“No bullshit. I’m really asking.”
“Fox News.”
Ainsley blew a gust of exasperation.
“Look College, it’s a personal-fucking-question. Ask me my cup size, I’d be more inclined to answer.”
“Really?”
“Every man in the television business I’ve ever met can estimate stats on a woman within fifteen seconds of meeting her. What’s your problem?” After five minutes, I couldn’t take the pout. “Fine. What do you mean by worst? Worst destruction? Worst suffering? Worst smell?”
Ainsley’s face crunched tighter with each question. Obviously, he hadn’t considered all the possible permutations.
“First thing that comes to mind, I guess,” he answered.
“I don’t feel like doing an ugliness Rorschach for you, College. What’s your point?”
“Okay. I’ll tell you the worst thing I ever saw. There was this guy I knew in school who used to-” he caught his breath before saying it, “-cut himself. On his hands, arms, chest, everywhere.”
“How?”
“Razor blades. Pens. Push pins. Everybody thought he was psycho. Once he did it with a fork in the lunch room.” His pretty face wrinkled with disgust and he shagged a hand through his hair, smoothing everything back into place.
“That’s it? That’s your worst?” Now he was depressing me.
“Well, no.” He got defensive. “One night, it was late on a Saturday night, I walked into the bathroom in the dorm, you know-”
“I know what bathrooms are, yes.”
Ainsley coughed. “Anyway, he was in there. On the floor. With blood. Lots of it.”
Long breath. I finally understood where this was going. “Dead?”
“Just about. He died at the hospital, I guess.”
“What did you do?”
“Puke,” he admitted with a grimace. “Then, I called somebody.”
Silence, except motor sounds and the wind, the sound of time passing.
“Here’s the thing,” Ainsley continued with a reasonable imitation of backbone, “since I was the one that found him, it always seemed like maybe, if I’d have gone to the bathroom sooner, you know? He wouldn’t have died.”
“You found him, so it was your fault?”
“Yeah.” He rolled his palms up on the steering wheel in a sort of baffled partial shrug. “We weren’t even friends. Still. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to brush my teeth that night.”
All I needed. Goading parables by innocent savants. “Who is it you think I can save, College Boy?”
He didn’t answer.
I stared out the window into the dark and the ghost of my own reflection.
Ainsley looked over at me, once, twice. Obviously, he wasn’t done.
“What?”
“Remember how you said, what we see when we look at something is ourselves? I can’t help wondering what an Amish person looks like to you.” He sounded curious, hardly flustered by my bad attitude.
We were still a good twenty minutes from civilization, such as you’ll find between a television station and suburbia. Street lights were few and far between but the autumn moon was fat and high. I could see the stumps of a broken, harvested field whip past my window and the darker ruffle of trees beyond. Farther out, almost at the horizon, I could see the glowing creep of monochrome homes, all constructed in the same shape like a Monopoly game run amok.
Empty farm land, or expanding home land, I’m not sure which image depressed me more. Without a disaster or a battle underway, I didn’t belong in either scene.
I never did answer him.
None of his damn business, anyway.
12:06:38 a.m.
Stupid bitch! What was she thinking? An open confrontation where anyone could see? Anyone could be watching?
He popped the glovebox and pulled out one of the blister packs he stashed for himself. He clutched the tablet in his hand and stared out the window at the darkened house.
What if a patrol car had rolled up in the middle of her little demonstration?
That’s all he needed. Curzon was all over him now for bullshitting his way onto the police lot to search Tom’s car. If Curzon had the slightest reason to think he was linked to Maddy O’Hara, there’d be a shit storm of questions.
He would have it out with Maddy O’Hara when he was ready.
Right now, he needed to find the things that belonged to him. He’d searched everywhere he could think, anywhere even remotely possible. He was nearly out of time.
Had he missed something when he searched Tom’s apartment? Unfortunately, that fat-assed VFD building super of Tom’s hadn’t called with the heads-up until after O’Hara and her gay boyfriend were already in there. She’d looked so satisfied, so fucking smug when she walked out. It made him itch to floor the accelerator again. He wasn’t going to run her down or anything, just put the fear of God into her. Remind her that everything can change in a second, just press a button and boom!
Christ, his head was pounding! He got out of the car and walked toward the house. He needed to calm down. Get on track. He tightened his grip on the tablet in his hand.
There were no street lights in the neighborhood and the light by the front door was on a timer. He’d watched it blink off a while ago. Nothing but dark out there.
There was a garden hose hanging near the garage door. The faucet squealed when he opened the valve. The rush of flowing water could probably be heard inside the house. It might even wake someone. He popped the pill and drank from the hose.
No lights came on. No one woke.
He stared at the empty windows, mapping the house in his head: bathroom, bedroom, another bedroom. That’s when he realized-there was someone who could help him, someone who would know Gina’s hiding places.
Jenny.
3:19:06 a.m.
Must have been close to 3 a.m. when Jenny came screaming awake. She hadn’t done it in a while, but I was on my feet and in her room before my head recognized what was happening.
“Don’t go! Don’t go. Don’t go.” Eyes popping with fear, she leapt out of the bed into my arms, half football tackle, half baby monkey in long-john pajamas.
“Easy, Jenny. Easy.” My hand went up and down her back on autopilot. She’d lost weight since I’d come. I could feel the vertebra of her spine. It gave me a hollow, sinking feeling.
I forced myself to speak softly. “Calm down. I’m here. I’m here.”
Clutching my T-shirt in her hands, the rest of her body relaxed. I stretched out beside her on the bed. My heart was thudding hard with the adrenaline rush of being woken from a sound sleep by terror. Jenny didn’t seem to notice. When my hand began to prickle from a lack of blood circulation, I pulled back slightly to shift her weight and she mewled a cry of despair that didn’t stop until I had my arm around her again.
We lay glued together most of the night, while I listened to her sleep and wrestled my familiar demons of fight and flight to the mat.
All I’d ever done was watch and point. I’d never had to fix anything.
Insecurities never hit harder than when they’re spliced into the black between dreams. Over and over, my head played an endless loop of mortification, you are fucking up. You are blowing it. Do something.
“Be okay,” I ordered Jenny through the darkness. “Please be okay.”
VIDEOAUDIO
Doctor Graham (log 2) small office.If you take a young teen, pull them out of school, concentrate their world experience into farm life, marriage and parenthood-it fundamentally changes the possibilities of their future.
Wide shot Amish family selling veggies, Centennial Park; boy licks ice cream.The life that looks like happiness to them will have a certain shape.